Nick Denton, I’m taking the gloves off.

Denton tries to beat me down tonight in a blog post. He points to an interview that I gave back in 1999 with Paper Magazine and tries to catch me in some sort of contradiction tonight (see quote below).

Now, last night I didn’t say our company would be worth 20-30 million. I said I think we can grow it to $10m in revenue in a couple of years with $2-3 million in EBITDA,and that companies like ours get valued at 2-10x EBITDA. So, the objective range of what this business could be worth is $4m to $30m*if* we grow to a couple of million in profits. Trust me, that is an if.

Nick is taking the extreme high-end of what I said the business could be worth. Whatever.

But that is Nick, always trying to make me look like a capitalist pig while he pays writers $1,000 a month and won’t give them one little crumb of equity. In my model I’m taking the writers with me, in his model he is riding the writers all the way to the bank.

Nick always tries to make me look like an advertising sellout while he forces his bloggers to personally thank the advertisers each week. Can you imagine that? Forcing you writers to thank the advertisers and then try and tell me about separating church and state?! Hello?!?!

I can understand why he is upset at me. One of his best bloggerspartnered with Weblogs, Inc.on Engadget.com. He and I both know that I’ve been talking to a number of his current bloggers about partnering on sites. In some way what Denton is doing is trying to demonize me so that when the next two bloggers in his empire leave to work with WIN he can say “Jason is a capitalist pig” don’t work with him.

You know what, I was ready to lay off partnering with your bloggers Nick, but now I’m pissed off. Consider this a shot across the deck at Gawker Media. If any of your bloggers want to leave Gawker Media and receive equity in the products they are building tell them to call me. And if they signed that non-compete you’ve been shoving down their throats I’ll help find them work till it runs out.

I am an entrepreneur and I want to build something big. I’m proud of that. Shockingly, I’d like to have a great big loft like you some day too Nick. Heck, sure I want a private jet, and an island andI want to own the New York Knicks. Not sure that will happen any time soon, but I’m going to give it a shot. Is that so wrong?

Here is the five-year old quote below, and I stand by that quote. However, I’m not a journalist anymore. Today I’m an entrepreneur and I’m not trying to be a journalist.

I had my kid gloves on last night, but you just poked the tiger. Get ready for round two.

DH: But how do you protect yourself from that? Obviously, you’re in a position to one day cash in as well.

JC: I haven’t solved that yet. It’s a very difficult thing for me personally. I don’t come from money. I’m a middle-class kid from Brooklyn, I’ve got $8,000 or $9,000 in my bank account. The most expensive thing I own is my couch, which cost $3,000, and I felt very guilty buying it. And the second most expensive thing I own is my dog. But one of the reasons I haven’t sold outand people just stick their hand out and say, “X millions of dollars, right now, for the magazine”is that I’m afraid to be really wealthy. And I’m afraid that I’ll lose my edge, I’m afraid that I’ll get soft. I really enjoy being a journalist, and I don’t want to muddy that with this expectation that I should be worth millions of dollars. I make every editor on the magazine, when they start, watch All the President’s Men and The China Syndrome.